Wednesday Wedding Poll: Crying

Today is my last day of work until June 7th!! I haven't taken a vacation from work (other than some days around the holidays) since Chris and I got engaged in July 2009!! I am so freaking excited to have some time off!! I'm feeling pretty caught up on my work after a really long week and a half of being swamped. My boss has been extremely understanding and excited for me, for which I am so grateful. My whole office gave Chris and me a very generous wedding gift on Monday. It was completely unexpected and so very appreciated, it reminded me how much happier I am at this new job that I've been at since August.

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I've been sort of up and down with emotions this week. First of all...all these new google commercials make me cry at the drop of a hat. Did you see the one where the Dad writes emails to his daughter from the day she was born and will one day share all the things he's been writing and keeping track of with her? It's the most beautiful commercial ever. I saw it last night and cried for about 5 minutes after it was over. Yea...it's that kind of week. Many of my friends have told me that even though they are emotional people, when it came down to their day, they were too excited and caught up in the moment to cry. Personally, I feel like this will be me. I cry at everything else, but put me in the actual scenario that I'm supposed to be crying at and I've got nothing. But then again, I've never been a Bride before..so who really knows??

So I'm curious: Did/Will you cry at your wedding?


3 daysss!!! My tracker on the upper right is def. off a little right? It's freaking me out!

Wednesday's Wedding Poll: Ceremony Seating

Today's poll is to get your opinion on what you would do if you were faced with the same ceremony seating situation as I am. I've never seen a set-up like our church before and so I was a little taken aback when I was told my options when we met with the priest a few weeks ago. Let me explain:

When we walked through the church, he explained to us that whoever designed the raised section of the church that holds the altar, wasn't thinking about the fact that weddings would be taking place there.

There is very little space on the platform between the steps and the altar, really only allowing enough space for the priest, and then just enough space for us to stand comfortably. But, since our ceremony involves sitting and standing, they will not put chairs in front of the priest because the chair legs would be too close to the edge of the steps. Here's a little sketch of how our platform and altar look.

As you can see, the space between the altar and stairs is really limited, so they put two chairs in the corner on either side. Our priest explained to us that some couples have the Bride and Maid-of-Honor sit on the left and the Groom and Best Man on the right, then the Bride and Groom come together and meet in the middle at the end of the ceremony for the exchange of rings. On one hand, I think that's a really sweet idea: We are apart until the end and finally come together as one at the exchanging of the rings.

On the other hand....I never even imagined NOT sitting/standing next to Chris during our entire ceremony. I would walk down the aisle and see him for the first time, then separate and go sit on opposite sides of the altar? I think I would feel sad to leave him at that point after finally meeting up, and therefore would prefer to sit like this:

The priest said that many couples choose to do it this way as well. It sounded like the couples that get married there are split somewhat 50/50 on doing both set-ups.

I think both are viable options, and we might get there for the rehearsal and come up with a different solution, or change our minds altogether, but because I've never seen this before, I'm curious: What would you do in this situation? 

Wednesday's "Royal" Wedding Poll

In honor of the royal wedding being just TWO DAYS away, I feel I simply MUST say something about it. By now, you've probably seen just about every crazy Royal Wedding paraphernalia that you could possibly ever think of. Over the past month, I've tried to cull as many "not so common" royal wedding themed products that maybe you haven't yet seen.

Ridiculous royal wedding items you've "GOT TO" Have:

1. Royal Wedding Garden Gnomes:

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2. Royal Wedding Barf Bags:

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3. Royal Wedding nails:

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4. Royal Wedding Refrigerator:

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5. Knit your Own Royal Wedding Kit!

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6. Royal Wedding Cellphone:

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7. Royal Wedding Pizza from Papa Johns: 

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8. Kate Middleton Jelly Bean: 

This wasn't manufactured this way...this just happened to be in somebody's jelly bean bag and noticed it looked like her!

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9. Royal Wedding Toilet Seat Cover

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10. Yankee Candle "A Royal Wedding"

 This I actually DO WANT! I'm going to buy this!

Prince Charles and Princess Diana got married within a month of my parents getting married! Now, 30 years later William and Catherine are getting married within a month of Chris and Me. 5:00am seems realllly early, but I am definitely making a plan to get up and watch the royal wedding live. How often does this happen? Be sure to get in on the fun over at weddzilla.com where a bunch of us will be contributing our thoughts and follow my tweets @lwoodsny! 

What about you? 

This Royal Wedding spoof T-mobile ad is genius:

Wednesday's Wedding Poll: Guest Book

I have a confession to make, I really hate to be negative about stuff like this, but here it is:

I don't like our engagement pictures. 

There, I said it. I don't hate them. I "like them...they're ok...there are a small handful of good ones that I feel I can use, but as a whole...if I could redo the whole entire thing, I would in a second. I had gotten to a point last summer where I just wanted them done and over with, and didn't really mentally prepare for the whole thing.

1. I hate what I'm wearing: I was determined to find a new shirt to wear. So I bought one the day before that I had never worn and it was "eh". I wanted to have a real "casual, we look great without even trying" look, and instead I feel like we were trying too hard to be "casual"...if that makes any sense at all. Sounds crazy...but it makes sense in my head. I really wish I had dressed up more and worn a skirt or a dress. I would have felt much more comfortable and "pretty" in them. I also should have done a few outfit changes throughout the day.

2. We took our pictures on literally...and I'm not ven exaggerating here..the hottest day of summer 2010. I was sweaty, gross, my hair frizzed out, and I was so uncomfortable the whole time. Add that to the fact that I had gained some summer weight. Whether anyone notices or not, as long as you know you're not at your ideal weight, it's going to bother you...we all know that. I didn't "feel" pretty and that completely manifested into "most" of our photos.

3. I was under the false impression that the photographer comes up with the ideas for certain cute, creative settings for pictures. That may be true for some photographers, but it's also up to you to come up with specific ideas and props you may want to use. They're not going to read your mind. it had never even occurred to me to prepare props to incorporate into our pictures and bring them along. I could have gotten really creative with some Wagner ideas...sigh.

I want to stress that I'm not saying this so anyone comments saying "OMG BUT THEY WERE SO GOOD!" That's not my purpose is stating this at all. I got one or two great photos from our shoot...and really, that's all I needed for save-the-dates and other things. 

As you can probably tell from my banner, this was my favorite picture from the day:

So yay, that's fine. I've moved on. The reason for this confession leads to the subject of our guest book. I really don't want to make a guest book with our engagement pictures on shutterfly.com or blurb.com. That was my original intent, and I love the guest books that I've seen so far from these sites, but I just can't bring myself to make a whole book of pictures I don't really love. 

so I took to Wedzu.com and Etsy.com to help me figure out what exactly I wanted. The first one I liked was on Etsy in ModernShabby's shop. She does custom guest books and has a lot of options to chose from. This one immediately caught my eye because it's already in our wedding colors:

Modern Shabby on Etsy.com

Here's another one from her shop. She can customize them any way you like:

Modern Shabby on Etsy.com

She has a TON of different fabrics to chose from:

Modern Shabby on Etsy.com

This one caught my eye. I liked the color combination and even though I LOVE the one above, I kind of want to get away from the whole white/green/black color combination for everything. This would add a nice contrast:

Modern Shabby on Etsy.com

I emailed the shop owner and she will include our customized calligraphy on the cover tag, which would be a great way to incorporate that artwork! the only drawback with this one is it comes with 30 pages and I'll have to purchase about 50 additional pages. Though I'm not sure at what cost, I think this will end up being a bit pricier than my option below. 

Next, I found this one in Red Otters shop at Wedzu.com

Wedzu.com - Red Otter - Lemon Blossom Guest Book

I love the tie, I love the colors, I love how simple it is and it comes with 80 pages instead of 30, and she already said she'd add 20 more for free if I was worried the 80 wouldn't be enough. 

This one isn't customizeable, and won't have our calligraphy on the cover...but it's perfectly lovely the way it is. 

You can probably tell which one I'm leaning toward for ease's sake, but I'm still really debating. Tell me, what do you think? Should I go with the fully customized one on Etsy, which will also include our calligraphy design? Or just go with the wedzu.com one that I won't have to design or make any changes to? Is there one you love more than the other?

Wednesday's Wedding Poll: Receiving Lines

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Receiving Lines: I was so torn on whether or not I wanted to have one. This is what I found on the knot:
          Q.

Is it necessary to have a wedding receiving line? Our wedding is at 7 p.m., immediately followed by a formal wedding dinner. We are stretched for time as it is. Plus, there will be around 350 wedding guests. What is appropriate?

A.

Sorry, but you gotta have one. With that many guests, there's no way you'll ever greet them all personally otherwise! Any time there are more than 50 guests at a wedding, you should have a receiving line. Try not to look at it as an annoying obligation. It's actually a very polite thing to do: Give each of your 350 guests a few seconds to hug you and wish you well before the blur of the reception begins for you and your new spouse. You'll also get to meet guests you may not yet know (maybe relatives from the other side of your new family). Yes, this will take a bit of time, but it's worth it. You won't regret it, and neither will your guests.

Now, I don't particularly agree with the above. I think if the wedding is immediately following your ceremony, especially at the same location, then let the festivities begin!! You'll have extra time to greet people during cocktail hour. But for us, we have 2 1/2 hours in between our ceremony and cocktail hour, so there is plenty of time to do this. Plus, there will still be time for our out of town guests to go back to the hotel and check in before getting picked up by the shuttle.

On one hand, I didn't want our guests to have to line up, wait in a long line, and then awkwardly say "hi" to people they, or we, don't even know (and there will be a lot of "first meetings" like this at our wedding) before leaving the church.

On the other hand...people have been doing receiving lines for centuries. Mainly, if I say "hi" to everyone during the receiving line, I won't feel as pressured to go around to every single person to say "hi" at the cocktail hour and reception, and that to me is a BIG plus and also why we are going to do the receiving line.

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But now this leads me to my next question: Do we have our guests throw something at us as we leave the church? I really hadn't planned on doing that...but I don't want to lose out on a great photo opportunity.

Personal: This is my friend Christina - how great are these bubbles?

I researched possibilities and there are a lot of different "items to throw" ideas out there! I also found this interesting:

While tossing rice became most popular in America, many countries have their own traditions. In Morocco, figs, dates, and raisins are thrown to encourage a "fruitful" union. Italians traditionally shower the newlyweds with sweets and sugarcoated nuts. (The word "confetti" may derive from the root for the Italian word for "confectionery.") In Korea, the groom's father tosses red dates at his new daughter-in-law to bring fertility. In France, wheat greets the happy couple. Eggs represent new life in some European countries and are thrown at newlyweds. An old Irish tradition has the couple being pelted with pots and pans (ouch!) in honor of their new domestic life.

Eggs?? pots and pans?? figs and dates? This was very interesting, but not appealing to me in the least. I also read that the rice killing birds thing is an urban legend, and they actually won't die from eating thrown rice. I thought that was true!

As you can see...I'm getting down to actually having to make these little decisions which have been so easy to put off until now. So tell me, "Did/Are you do/doing a receiving line" Also, any ideas on great creative things to throw after the ceremony?

Wednesday's Wedding Poll and Storymix Media

http://storymixmedia.com/

I recently came across an awesome website and service called My Flip Wedding from Storymix Media. Everyone constantly tells me our day will fly by before I know it and will be done in the blink of an eye, and this makes me sad to think about. I've always been a "documenter." In High School, I was always the one with the camera, and video camera. If anyone ever forgot to bring their camera somewhere they thought "Oh that's ok, Laura will have hers". This has been even more true as I attend all my friend's weddings. I have documented and video recorded everyone's wedding to the best of my non-professional ability. I have all my friend's entrances, cake-cuttings, first dances, etc., to have on hand for slideshows, scrapbooks, and general memories. But this leads me to one question: Will anyone do that for me at my wedding? I realize that not everyone is as crazy about documenting as I am, so I can't honestly expect others to be as crazy as me about capturing every moment.

When we picked our photographer, we added on a basic videography package with our booking. But unfortunately, I have to say this was a decision based purely on getting a fair price for what it was, not about quality of product. I got the sense that Déjà Vu does not take their videography very seriously, and was not impressed by their video samples. I told myself that any documentation...was good documentation, sucked it up, and went on my way.

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But then I heard about My Flip Wedding from Storymix Media. Storymix has a unique service designed for wedding couples. They supply Flip cams for 3 day usage by your friends, family, guests, and even you to shoot footage the whole weekend. After the wedding, you simply send the cameras back, they upload the footage to an online account, and you get to personalize what's included by picking the scenes and adding captions and titles!! Then they professionally edit it into an amazing 15-20 minute highlight movie on DVD based on one of 10 themes you choose. For a control freak like me, who also likes to have creative input in the final product, this was a dream come true! This would finally allow me to have some video footage first-hand from our guests and friends!

Besides the fact that we can get a great video keepsake to enjoy for the rest of our lives, the prices are really fabulous. Packages start at only $99.99. With My Flip Wedding there's no reason any couple can't capture their big day on video. Plus, with the cameras in the hands of your friends and family, you know you'll be saving the fun, personal, and intimate moments that you really want to see, especially since you won't be able to experience them all first hand.

And do you know just how lucky I am?! Storymix Media provided us with a coupon to use their product for our wedding!! After we get back from the honeymoon, I'll do another review to let you know how everything went but I can't wait to share my video with you all when it's done! For now, check out a sample from another wedding that used My Flip Wedding:


You can view other samples here, and be sure to check out the Storymix blog which has awesome tips for getting great photos and videos from your wedding.

Are/Did you having/have a videographer for your wedding?

Wednesday Wedding Poll: Are you changing your name?

My mother kept her maiden name. A self proclaimed feminist, she decided at a very young age to keep her maiden name and though my father wasn't thrilled with this at first, they eventually talked it out and reached an understanding. I was asked countless times growing up if my parents were divorced and am getting asked that again now that our invitations are out, but my parents have been happily married for 30 years, this year!

Me on the other hand: I am fine with changing my name and never really had trouble deciding on this. Of course, this is nothing personal against my family, mother, or last name, but I am excited to share the same last name as Chris. I also do not know any one of my friends who have kept their last name through marriage, so I'm curious if there are others out there.

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What about you, are you changing your name?



Answers will be revealed on Friday!

Wednesday Wedding Poll: Favors

www.perfectweddingzone.com

When it comes to favors, Chris and I are very torn on the idea. As far as I'm concerned we have 3 options

1) Don't give favors at all. I don't think favors are neccessary. We're paying enough to entertain our guests all night as it is. I've been to weddings where no favors were given and no one has batted an eyelash about it.
2) Give a donation to a charity- this is increasingly popular and classy idea. It says "yes. We spent a lot on the wedding, but we're charitable too!
3) Give favors

Pretty much every favor I've come across in my search has been terrible and I was completely behind the charity idea, until this week when I came across a favor idea I could actually get behind. Chris actually liked the idea, too and now we're torn again. We deferred to our friends who's wedding we've been to in the past three years but that didn't help at ALL. In the past 3 years we've been to 6 weddings. Of those weddings 2 didn't give out favors, 2 did give favors, and 2 gave a donation to charity. Obviously, it's split across the board and this is completely our decision on which route we'd like to take.



Answers will be revealed on Friday!

Wednesday's Wedding Poll: Guest Book

I have a confession to make. I really hate to be negative about stuff like this..but here it is:

I don't like our engagement pictures.

There, I said it. I don't hate them. I "like" them...they're ok...there's a small handful of good ones that I feel I can use, but as a whole...if I could redo the whole entire thing, I would in a second. I had gotten to a point where I just wanted them done and over with, and didn't really mentally prepare for the whole thing.

1. I hate what I'm wearing: I was determined to find a new shirt to wear. So I bought one the day before that I had never worn and it was "eh". I wanted to have a real "casual, we look great without even trying" look, and instead I feel like we were trying too hard to be "casual"...if that makes any sense at all. Sounds crazy..but it makes sense in my head. I really wish I had dressed up more and worn a skirt or a dress. I would have felt much more comfortable and "pretty" in them. I also should have done a few outfit changes throughout the day.

2. We took our pictures on literally...and I'm not even exaggerating here...the hottest day of summer 2010. I was sweaty, gross, my hair frizzed out, and I was so uncomfortable the whole time. Add that to the fact that I had gained some summer weight. Whether anyone notices or not, as long as you know you're not at your ideal weight, it's going to bother you...we all know that. I didn't "feel" pretty and that completely manifested into "most" of our photos.

3. I was under the false impression that the photographer comes up with the ideas to "set the stage" for pictures. That may be true for some photographers, but it's also up to you to come with specific ideas and props you may want to use. They're not going to read your mind. It had never even occurred to me to prepare props to incorporate into our pictures and bring them along. I could have gotten really creative with some Wagner ideas....sigh.

I want to stress that I'm not saying this so anyone comments saying "OMG BUT THEY WERE SO GOOD!" That's not my purpose in stating this at all. I got one or two great photos from our shoot...and really, that's all I needed for save-the-dates and other things.

As you can tell from my banner, this was my favorite picture from the day:

So yay, that's fine. I've moved on. So the reason for me confessing this leads to our guest book. I really don't want to make a guest book with our engagement pictures on shutterfly.com or blurb.com. That was my original intent, and I love the guest books that I've seen so far from these sites, but I just can't bring myself to make a whole book of pictures I don't really love.

So I took to Wedzu.com and Etsy.com to help me figure out what exactly I wanted. The first one I liked was on Etsy in ModernShabby's shop. She does custom guest books, and has a lot of options to chose from. This one immediately caught my eye because it's already in our wedding colors:

Modern Shabby

Here's another one from her shop: she can customize them any way you like.

Modern Shabby

 She has a TON of different fabrics to chose from:

This one caught my eye, I liked the color combination and even though I LOVE the one above, I kind of wanted to get away from the black/green/white theme for everything:

I've emailed the shop owner and she will include our customized calligraphy on the cover tag, which would be a great way to incorporate that artwork! The only drawback with this one is it comes with 30 pages and I'll have to purchase about 50 additional pages. Though I'm not sure at what cost, I think this will end up being a bit pricier than my option below.

Next I found this one in Red Otter's shop at Wedzu.com.

Wedzu.com Red Otter - Lemon Blossom Guest Book

I love the tie, I love how simple it is, I love the colors, and it comes with 80 pages instead of 30, and she'll add 20 more for free if I feel I'll need more.

Not customizable, and won't have our calligraphy on the cover...but it is perfectly lovely the way it is. 

You can probably tell which one I'm leaning toward for ease's sake, but I'm still really debating. Tell me, what do you think? Should I go with the fully customized one on Etsy, which will also include our calligraphy design? Or just go with the wedzu.com one that I won't have to design or make any changes to? Is there one you love more than the other? Thanks for your input!

Wednesday Wedding Poll and Wedzu.com

I posted last week on Weddzilla about Wedzu.com, which is basically "The Etsy for Brides", and want to make sure that you have all heard about it! By now, everyone pretty much knows about Etsy.com, which has definitely become any bride's best friend. But now, Wedzu has come onto the scene and it may just eventually give Etsy a run for its money!

When you go to wedzu.com, everything is clearly organized by wedding category across the top, and broken down into sub-categories beyond that. Here are some gems I found browsing the site:

I love this chalkboard "menu" seating chart idea:

Or how about these clutches for your bridesmaids? They are completely customizable!

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Looking for a gift for your groomsmen?

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or how about for your groom, a "Can't buy me love" money clip.

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Like this bouquet? It's PAPER!

Add caption

I LOVE these luggage tags for the honeymoon suitcases.

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Wedzu is still very new, and some of the categories do not even have items in them to sell. As more and more brides start using this for help in their planning, I think wedzu will catch on quickly. If you're not ready to betray Etsy just yet, at least check the site out and gather some neat ideas and inspiration!

Seeing that Etsy.com is the reigning superior site of its kind right now. I'm curious:

Royal Protection

You may remember my post on how the weddzilla weddmark is helping me stay organized in planning my wedding. I'm very happy to announce that for the past two weeks and from now on, I am a featured blogger for Weddzilla's blog. I will be posting there every Tuesday and Thursday as I reflect back on the past year and half of wedding planning, as well as sharing some new tricks of the trade that I'm learning along the way.

Read my first three posts:

Getting to know Blogger Bride Laura

Staying Organized: A Bride's Review of the Weddzilla Weddmark and Other Planning Tools

Wedzu: The Etsy for Brides!  

Definitely check this last post out, it's an awesome site and I'll post about it here next week!!

Also, the results of Wednesday's Wedding Poll are in!

Would you prefer vanilla cake with...

Cannoi Cream: 17

French Cream: 20

Neither, both sound horrible: 2

So french cream won...but only by 3 votes!! Thanks so much for casting your vote (yes, even you 2 who don't like either!) Chris and I will think long and hard about your decision as we decide upon ours. (But really...we'll probably do different fillings in the different tiers, especially since this was so close.) 

 

And now for my random, silly, Friday wedding find: Maybe this is in poor taste, but I am posting anyway. I won't go into detail here, the picture speaks for itself. But really?? Are royal condoms really neccessary? 

Source

"Combining the strength of a Prince with the yielding sensitivity of a Princess-to-be, Crown Jewels condoms promise a royal union of pleasure."

No really....that's what the website says. Read the full article here at TMZ, plus the ridiculous disclaimer that these are not meant for actual use. What WILL they come up with next? 

Have a great, and productive weekend everyone!

Wednesday's Wedding Poll

Help us plan our wedding! In light of our cake tasting on Saturday, and not being able to decide on a cake filling. How about you help us?

If you were at a wedding would you want vanilla cake with Cannoli Cream filling, or French Cream filling? French cream, is like a light french vanilla mousse.



Results will be posted on Friday!

In addition:
Fellow blogging brides! If your wedding is coming up this year, or even next year...can you please leave me a comment with your date below? I'm thinking of doing a post featuring a time-line of all our blogs and wedding dates.

So please comment below with your thoughts on the poll, and if you have an upcoming wedding, please include your wedding date!

Wednesday's Wedding Poll

As you know, Chris and I are getting married in the Spring. This season worked out best for us based on the time we got engaged, which was the summer of 2009. We knew we wanted a longer engagement but really, not longer than two years. That meant either a Fall 2010 wedding which was a little too soon, or a Spring 2011 wedding. Sometimes, throughout my planning, I wondered if we should have gone with Fall. Like when I discovered my love for anemones and kale, but found out they were seasonal in the Fall. Or, as we were attending some of the amazing Fall weddings we went to this year. I feel like with the typical Fall icons (apples, pumpkins, apple cider, leaves, burnt orange) you can really get creative playing up the season.

But in the end, we chose Spring, and I can't be anything but happy with this time of year. I'm excited for gorgeous bright flowers, birds chirping outside, beautiful green grass, and our guests totally ready and refreshed for a party after hibernating all winter. You really can't go wrong with any time of year, each season offers its  own pros and cons. I read this on another blog yesterday: "What should I do if it rains? Smile...and hope there's a rainbow!"

What season did/will you get married in? What made you choose this time of year?
Or, What season do you want to get married in if you're not engaged (that one's for you Kate!)






"...All you have to do is call" -James Taylor

Results posted Friday!

Wednesday's Wedding Poll: Tuxedos

Tonight I was invited to dinner and drinks at Westbury Manor to be part of a small focus group of brides-to-be and Long Island newlyweds!! The dinner is being hosted by a group of people hoping to launch a new website to help brides plan their wedding. I'm so excited to share my opinions and advice, and I'll certainly report back about the event!

In light of the fact that we picked the guys' tuxedos on Monday, and were faced with so many different options, today's poll has to do with tuxedos:



I JUST learned through creating this poll that it's actually cummerbund?? I alllways thought it was cumberbund. Turns out, many people spell it that way, but the actual correct way is cummerbund. Who knew?!